Making Contact

The film Oppenheimer has reignited public interest in the Manhattan Project, the WWII-era secret program to develop the atomic bomb. But the movie leaves out important parts of the story. On today's show, we hear about the impact of nuclear colonialism and the Manhattan Project on the people and places of New Mexico with Myrriah Gómez, author of Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos. And then we dig into how nuclear testing during the Cold War led to dangerous and lasting contamination in the Marshall Islands and San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood.

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Featuring:

Myrriah Gómez, associate professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico and author of Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos

Making Contact Team:

• Host: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow
• Digital Marketing Manager: Taylor Rapalyea
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music Credit: "Documentary Piano Ambient" by Bohdan Kuzmin via Pixabay The story from the second half of today's episode was created and reported by Rebecca Bowe. It was originally commissioned and produced by the nonprofit news organization San Francisco Public Press as part of an upcoming audio and text series called "Exposed," with editing by Michael Stoll; archival, audio and photographic research by Chris Roberts and Stacey Carter; engineering and sound design by Mel Baker; fact-checking by Ambika Kandasamy and support from the Fund for Environmental Journalism and the California Endowment. Today's excerpted version, from the "Sandblasted at the Shipyard" audio series, had additional audio engineering and sound design by Jacob Nasim, with support from the Breathe Network for Racial, Environmental and Climate Justice.

Learn More:

• Making Contact homepage
• Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos
• San Francisco Public Press

In some parts of the world, traditional herbal remedies are the norm. When we think of natural remedies we tend to think of older generations living in remote areas, in far away countries, with little access to modern healthcare. We rarely think about the ancient medicinal plants that might exist in our very own cities. On today's episode we look at plant and herb medicines through the lens of Michele Elizabeth. Lee the author of Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African-American Healing.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

• Michele Elizabeth Lee is a traditional healing practitioner, educator, visual artist and the author of Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing.
• Brandi Mack, a Holistic Health Educator, Therapeutic Massage Therapist, Trauma-Informed Youth developer, Powerful Presenter, and Permaculture Designer.
• Estrella Davina is a holistic practitioner.

Making Contact Staff

• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Staff Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum and Lucy Kang
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music Credits:

• Blue Dot Session - Bedroll
• Blue Dot Session - 3rd Chair
• Lobo Loco - Alright in Louisiana
• Lobo Loco - Inside Your Body
• Audiobinger - The Garden State

Learn More:

• Working The Roots Instagram
• Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing
• Brandi Mack
• LA Times: Black Herbalist
• Black Women Herbalists
• Black Healers
• NY Times: Some Lessons from Herbalists
• Mojo Workin'
• African American Slave Medicine
• Sticks Stones Roots Bones

On today's show, we'll hear an encore of a show from our archives that first aired in April. We'll be looking at the environmental impact of the rail industry and hear from people in two communities currently impacted by rail-related contamination. In February, a Suffolk Northern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and residents are still recovering from the disaster over two months later. Residents like Jami Wallace and community organizations are fighting for relief.

In Houston's Fifth Ward, residents have been living with the dire health effects of carcinogenic creosote used to treat railroad ties decades ago. Health officials have found cancer clusters in the neighborhood, where many have been devastated by the loss of friends, neighbors and loved ones. We'll hear a story from Living Downstream about the impacts to this close-knit community, where residents and organizers like Sandra Edwards continue to advocate for accountability and justice.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

Jami Wallace, community organizer and East Palestine resident Sandra Edwards, community organizer, member of Impact Fifth Ward and Impact Justice, and Fifth Ward resident

Making Contact Staff: Host: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Engineer: Jeff Emtman Living Downstream Staff: Story: Generations in Houston's 5th Ward Contend With Contamination, Cancer Clusters Story producer: Laura Isensee Story editor: Steve Mencher Living Downstream founding producer: Steve Mencher President and CEO of Northern California Public Media: Darren LaShelle Story music:

Minimal Documentary by penguinmusic via Pixabay Documentary by The Mountain via Pixabay Lobo Loco and Nine Inch Nails, under Creative Commons licenses

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings for the use of music by the late Texas blues artist, Lightnin' Hopkins

Learn More:

Making Contact Homepage: www.radioproject.org Unity Council for EP Train Derailment petition urging President Biden to issue a Major Disaster Declaration for the Norfolk Southern train derailment: https://only.one/act/east-palestine Impact Fifth Ward: https://www.facebook.com/cleanupthecreosote Texas Standard's story and interview with reporter Laura Isensee: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/houstonians-living-in-neighborhoods-with-high-rates-of-cancer-say-rail-yards-cleanup-plans-fall-short/ Spotify link to Living Downstream series, including the story heard on this episode: https://open.spotify.com/show/1tPKsb6vtQkuJjNrn5MEij

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

This week on Making Contact, we bring you a story from our podcast partners, 70 Million titled Highway Robbery: How a Small-Town Traffic Trap Became A Legal Black Hole. About 20 minutes north of Birmingham, Alabama, on Interstate 22, is the working-class town of Brookside. Its almost 1300 residents make it about the size of a large high school. According to the 2020 census, Brookside's population is mostly White and 21% are Black. On paper, it's a lot like other small towns in this part of Alabama. That is, until 2022, when Brookside became infamous for, of all things, a traffic trap.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist - Sandra Harris - Town Hall Speaker 1 - Ashley - Leah Nelson, research director for the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice - Bill Dawson, a criminal, and civil rights lawyer from Birmingham - Adam Danneman, the head of the Public Defender's office in Jefferson County - Joanna Weiss

70 Million Staff:

Episode Reporter: Rhana Natour Editor: Monica Lopez and Juleyka Lantigua Host: Mitzi Miller Sound Designer: Erica Huang Photo Editor: Michelle Baker Staff Writer and Designer: Kori Doran Lead Fact Checker: Haylee Millikan Lead Producer: Pamela Kirkland Episode Photographer: Amarr Croskey Creator/Executive Producer: Juleyka Lantigua Making Contact Staff: Hosts: Anita Johnson Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Learn More:

70 Million Sandra Harris - Grandmother accounts unjust arrest AL.com Brookside Police Chief Resigns Target Speed Traps Class Action Complaint

There's an idea in Mexico that racism doesn't exist, that all Mexicans are "mestizo" - a homogenous blend of Spanish and indigenous. But cultural worker José Antonio Aguilar says racism is lived by Black and brown Mexicans in many ways. He founded Racismo MX, an organization which seeks to dismantle racism, after coming to terms with his own racial reality as a "prieto" - a brown man. We also hear from anthropologist Ismael Rivera and Aztec expert Camilla Townsend as they unravel lies the Spanish colonizers told about ancient Aztecs that still feed racist tropes today.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring: José Antonio Aguilar - Racismo MX, Founder and Director, Ismael Rivera - Anthropologist, Historian, Cultural Guide, Dr. Camilla Townsend, P.h.D. - Rutgers University, Professor

Host: Amy Gastelum Freelance Producer: Anthony Wallace Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Engineer: Jeff Emtman Learn More:

Ismael Rivera Tours https://riveratrips.wordpress.com/ Racismo MX https://racismo.mx/ Camilla Townsend https://history.rutgers.edu/people/faculty/details/188-townsend-camilla

On today's show, we'll revisit the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic by looking at two alternative supply chains for masks during the fallout from the Trump administration's failure to prepare. We'll be speaking with the ProPublica reporter David McSwane about his book Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick. The book details the shadowy supply chain of brokers looking to profit from the pandemic – to the tune of millions of dollars. We'll also hear from Mai-Linh Hong, co-editor and co-author of The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice, about a mutual aid organization that created a different supply chain for homemade masks based on community, care and connection over profit.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

• J. David McSwane, award-winning ProPublica investigative reporter and author of Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick
• Mai-Ling Hong, UC Merced assistant professor of literature, co-editor and co-author of The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice

Making Contact Staff:

• Host: Lucy Kang
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music Credit: Blue Dot Session - Order of Entrance

Learn More:

• Making Contact
• Dr. Mai-Linh Hong
• J. David McSwane
• Pandemic, Inc.: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick
• The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice

In 2019, a well known romance writer began tweeting about other writers in her community and concerns about racism. It led to a huge reckoning within an organization called the Romance Writers of America, which is still unfolding. And although the online debate seemed to be isolated to a specific community of romance writers and their fans, it was really a microcosm of what's been happening all over the US. We learn all about romance novels and how newer writers are changing the norms of the genre, and giving it a political power it's never had before. And, we talk about what it means for organizations to change as they grapple with questions of race, including organizations such as ours, at Making Contact. This is an encore presentation of part two of a two-part series.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

• Contance Grady
• Shana McDavis-Conway
• CJ Broderick
• Jayashree Kamble
• Jessica Partnow

Making Contact Team:

• Host: Salima Hamirani
• Producers: Salima Hamirani, Anita Johnson, Lucy Kang and Amy Gastelum
• Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music:

• Frequency Decree - Cenote
• Broke for Free- Washout
• Frequency Decree - Lithosphere
• Blue Dot Sessions - Boston Landing

Learn More:

• Constance Grady's Article for Vox
• The Romance Writers of America
• International Association for the Study of Popular Romance
• Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemología
• The Equity Project
• Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
• Recommended Reading list

In 2019 a well known romance writer began tweeting about other writers in her community and concerns about racism. It led to a huge reckoning within an organization called the Romance Writers of America, which is still unfolding. And although the online debate seemed to be isolated to a specific community of romance writers and their fans, it was really a microcosm of what's been happening all over the US. In this episode we learn all about romance novels and how newer writers are changing the norms of the genre, and giving it a political power it's never had before. And, we talk about what it means for organizations to change as they grapple with questions of race.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring

• Jayashree Kamble; professor of English Literature at La Guardia Community College
• Reagan Jackson; co-executive director, Young Women Empowered, also a romance reader and fan
• Contance Grady; Senior Culture Reporter for Vox
• Elise Staples, member of a romance reading book club through meetup.com

Making Contact Team

• Episode Host: Salima Hamirani
• Producers: Salima Hamirani, Anita Johnson, Lucy Kang, Amy Gastelum
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music:

• Johnny Ripper - Overout
• Johnny Ripper - Sfhk (mental breakdown)
• Johnny Ripper - Untitled (waking up)
• Johnny Ripper - In a Dream
• Dance of the Seahorse - Gideon Freudman
• Pictures of the Floating World - Waves
• Bio Unit - Subterannean
• Ketsa - you asked

Learn More:

• Constance Grady's Article for Vox
• The Romance Writers of America
• International Association for the Study of Popular Romance
• Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemología
• Recommended Reading list

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

Journalist Natalie Pattillo and filmmaker Daniel A. Nelson created the documentary film And So I Stayed to raise awareness about criminalized survival. This is the criminal justice system's long practice of imprisoning survivors of intimate partner violence when they fight back against their abusers. Pattillo, herself a survivor, followed the stories of Kim Dadou Brown, Tanisha Davis and Nikki Addimando, women imprisoned for killing their abusers in a struggle to survive.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

• Natalie Pattillo, journalist and mother
• Daniel A. Nelson, filmmaker and cinematographer

Making Contact Team:

• Host: Amy Gastelum
• Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
• Executive Director: Jina Chung
• Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow
• Engineer: Jeff Emtman

Music Credits: via WFMU free music archive

• Poddington Bear, Alsace
• HoliznaCC0, Whatever

Photo by Daniel A. Nelson, © Grit Pictures LLC.

Learn More:

• The Survivor's Justice Project: https://www.sjpny.org
• And So I Stayed Film: https://andsoistayedfilm.com/
• The National Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

Hundreds of bills targeting the trans and queer community have been introduced across state legislatures this year – a new record. Louisiana, like many other states, has seen a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session. But the state is somewhat of an outlier in the South, and activists have been successful in pushing back against these types of bills in the past. Sophie Ziegler joins today's episode to show us what legislative organizing looks like in the state – and what it can teach us about the fight for trans rights.

Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!

Featuring:

• Sophie Ziegler, oral historian and legislative organizer in Louisiana, founder and director of the Solidarity History Initiative
• Pearl Ricks, reproductive rights organizer and executive director of the Reproductive Justice Action Collective
• Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates and co-founder of locALL
• Benjamin Franklin High School students

Host: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Engineer: Jeff Emtman Music credits - via Pixabay

• "Documentary" by The Mountain
• "Shooting stars" by PianoAmor
• "Chill Ambient" by Coma-Media
• "Documentary" by Coma-Media
• "Prank" by Music_For_Videos

Learn More:

Solidarity History Initiative https://solidarityhistory.org/ Mapping Trans Joy https://www.mappingtransjoy.org/ Louisiana Trans Advocates Legislation Tracker https://www.latransadvocates.org/lege-tracker Reproductive Justice Action Collective https://www.rejacnola.org/